Violence on Toronto’s streets: How did it happen?

There are some 19,000 police in Toronto this weekend. Estimates put the number of protesters on the streets anywhere between 10,000 and 30,000. Police say a minority of them were violent.

So how is it that protesters were able to smash and burn two police cruisers on Queen St. W. between Spadina Ave. and Peter St. Saturday afternoon?

National Post reporter Nick Aveling witnessed the events leading up to the destruction, subsequently captured and broadcast by the world’s media. Here’s what he saw:

3:35 p.m. A ring of police — about 25 in riot gear and another 10 on bikes — guard two cruisers parked on Queen Street. They’re vastly outnumbered and surrounded by protesters on three sides (a wall protects them from the north). The crowd chants taunts of “Now we’ve got you surrounded!” and “How do you like it?” but nobody behaves violently. About 30 more riot police arrive on the scene wearing gas masks and join the formation.

3:50 p.m. The standoff continues without incident. Police stay in formation as the crowd around them ebbs and flows. About 500 protesters, fewer than before, now surround the police.

4:05 p.m. A large group of demonstrators arrives from the west, and police make a sudden change in tactics. The ring collapses into two lines running perpendicular across the full width of Queen St., officers standing back to back, and inches towards the east. The cruisers are abandoned and mounted by protesters before being spray-painted, smashed and later set on fire.

Toronto police spokesperson Const. Wendy Drummond told the Post on Sunday that a window on one of the cruisers was smashed some time before 3:35 p.m., while two officers were still inside.

“Personal safety trumps property damage,” she said of the decision to abandon the vehicles. “The vehicles could not be reversed — officers would have struck somebody if they had reversed.”

It took just seconds for protesters to mount the cruisers after they were abandoned, and a few seconds longer for the cars to be smashed. But not everyone in the crowd was in favour of the destruction.

“This is counter-productive. Cars are left here unprotected, obviously on purpose, to distract protesters into doing exactly what they’re doing right now. They’re feeding into exactly what the cops want,” said Caitlin V., who requested her last name not be published. “It’s stupid, it’s destruction of property, and it’s going to distract from all of these peaceful protesters who are actually trying to do something for good here.”